Stop asking directions.
This is something I’ve been walking with lately—and by walking, I mean limping, because my hip has been hurting, which I will weave in.
I recently noticed an old pattern of mine get reawakened by this breakup: a struggle with trusting myself.
I was sharing with a good friend about this old tendency to second-guess my knowing, to assume others know better. Whether in a relationship, a learning environment, with friends or colleagues. I also opened up about how this breakup has left me questioning my ability to choose good partners. That my radar is faulty because I got blindsided.
I shared how, in these relationships, I could feel my knowing telling me: This isn’t right. Something is off. This isn’t ok. And yet, the other person would reflect back to me that it was all in my head—that their version of reality was the truth.
And sometimes because of my tools I can become even more flexible and understanding and go inward to look at what is my responsibility and work to be done…….losing my strength and conviction in my gut that says you know what’s true.
I shared all of this while sitting with a hot pad on my hip and my knee propped up, feeling both the heartache and the physical pain of it all.
My wise friend took it all in and reflected back to me that the hip holds such flexibility and strength and that in what I was describing she felt as I became more flexible to these outside influences, bending in my body, I lost my strength. My trust in my knowing weakened.
Yup.
I know this pattern well. It’s softened and changed a lot, especially when it comes to my work, my voice, sharing my skill set. But it’s old.
As a kid, I had a deep knowing that the things that were happening were not ok, and yet the big people around me didn’t seem to notice. If they didn’t think anything was wrong then I must be wrong.
All of this reminded me of a passage in Glennon Doyle’s Untamed.
“This is the most revolutionary thing a woman can do: the next precise thing, one thing at a time, without asking permission or offering explanation. This way of life is thrilling. I understand now that no one else in the world knows what I should do. The experts don’t know, the ministers, the therapists, the magazines, the authors, my parents, my friends, they don’t know. Not even the folks who love me the most. Because no one has ever lived or will ever live this life I am attempting to live, with my gifts and challenges and past and people. Every life is an unprecedented experiment. This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been. There is no map. We are all pioneers.”
And so I am reminding myself each day to stop asking directions and I am rebuilding trust with my knowing, one step at a time.
May we all trust ourselves a little more each day.
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